Every time I purchase a decent arcade-ish racing game I end up binging it for a few days until I burn out (no pun intended). That's exactly what happened with this one as well. Actually got it on sale before it gets removed from the store.

The game is very enjoyable, I would say it's Microsoft’s spin on the Gran Turismo genre. It's both arcade enough to be enjoyable with a controller while at the same time offering a realistic driving style, different for every car, and rewarding clean lines and races.

There are hundreds of cars to collect and upgrade, and many races to beat.

The game is online, but it works offline too, UNLIKE SOME OTHER OPEN WORLD RACING GAME BY ANOTHER COMPANY *COUGH* UBISOFT *COUGH* and that's good.

Graphics are really good, and the game is very well optimized. I played both on my high end PC and on Steam Deck and got great performance either way (though Deck needed a bit of tinkering to get the optimal settings for 60 fps).

I got the Ultimate Edition, thus I was very disappointed to find out that it includes all the DLC except for the Hot Wheels one, which isn't available anymore for purchase. That was actually quite a bummer even though in the end I can live without it.

Overall then a very enjoyable game, I recommend getting it before it gets delisted, if it goes on sale again.

Bought this to play with friends after learning it'd be delisted soon. 28 hours in we're still encountering UI problems that prevent us from successfully joining the same convoy and racing in events together; it just got to be too much, so we've quit in favor of other/better games. Flatout 2's OpenSpy implementation is more stable, and you can get into a race MUCH quicker.

Once you do get into a race it's fine, the problem is the window dressing surrounding the races is insufferable, unskippable(?!), and there's way too much of it (constantly taking control away from you to have the blandest people from a J. Crew catalog enthusiastically tell you about exciting events). When you finish a race in co-op you don't get to review your times or fastest laps, it's just point values based on placement, removing a thing that can encourage refinement and friendly competition in favor of saying "You won!". Is this intentional?

I might pick this up again to play singleplayer at some point, but in the meantime I'll be on the lookout for modern racers that have a better understanding of what's actually good about them.

Nothing better than drinking cold beer and playing this gem